MongoDB – Get the last N records OR most recent records

Today in this article, we will learn to perform MongoDB – Get the last N records OR most recent records. There are easy approaches to achieving the last N records or most records in the mongo document.

We will cover a few approaches to Get the last N records OR most recent records.

Overall, We will cover the below aspects,

I have below Mongo Collection where my fields are defined as below.

I have a field name called “UserID” which is of type “Int“. I want to use this field to query first “N” element from MongoDB.

Command:

Command to get the first N element in MongoDB

db.<Collection>.find().sort({<field>:1}).limit(N)

The above query will give records based on Ascending order of field value.

 db.<Collection>.find().sort({<field>:-1}).limit(N) 

Similarly, the above query will give records based on descending order of field value.

Example :

Get the last 2 records in MongoDB

Ascending order,

db.Books.find().sort({UserId:1}).limit(2)

OR

Descending Order,

db.Books.find().sort({UserId:-1}).limit(2)  

db.Books.find().sort({UserId:1}).limit(2)

{ "_id" : ObjectId("62c5dd1902514a766441e2ee"), "UserId" : 555, "Books" : [ { "book_name" : "book_name1", "price" : "88", "category" : [ { "key" : "Test1", "value" : 123 } ] }, { "book_name" : "book_name2", "price" : "50", "category" : [ { "key" : "test2-1", "value" : null }, { "key" : "test4", "value" : null } ] } ], "value" : null }

{ "_id" : ObjectId("6382cfa8c592b1532c8d5bcb"), "UserId" : 934, "DateAdded" : ISODate("2022-01-01T05:00:00Z"), "Books" : [ { "book_name" : "book_name1", "price" : null, "category" : [ { "key" : "Test1", "value" : null } ] }, { "book_name" : "book_name2", "price" : "50", "category" : [ { "key" : "test

Get the last 50 records in MongoDB

db.Books.find().sort({UserId:-1}).limit(50)

Get the last 100 records in MongoDB

 db.Books.find().sort({UserId:-1}).limit(100) 

Command to get the recent record in MongoDB

Command:

Command to get the most recent records in MongoDB

If you have a date field already in the MongoDB document then you can sort the most recent documents based on dates.

db.<Collection>.find().sort({<DateField>:-1}).limit(N)

OR

 db.<Collection>.find().sort({_id:-1}).limit(N) 

If your Mongo records use default ObjectID, then this _id will have a default insertion time that is unique and can be used to get records.

Example

db.Books.find().sort({DateAdded:1}).limit(5)

OR

 db.Books.find().sort({_id : -1}).limit(5) 

db.Books.find().sort({DateAdded:1}).limit(5)

{ “_id” : ObjectId(“62c5dd1902514a766441e2ee”), “UserId” : 555, “Books” : [ { “book_name” : “book_name1”, “price” : “88”, “category” : [ { “key” : “Test1”, “value” : 123 } ] }, { “book_name” : “book_name2”, “price” : “50”, “category” : [ { “key” : “test2-1”, “value” : null }, { “key” : “test4”, “value” : null } ] } ], “value” : null }
{ “_id” : ObjectId(“62c5e3f602514a766441e2ef”), “UserId” : 6777, “DateAdded” : ISODate(“2019-01-01T05:00:00Z”), “Books” : [ { “book_name” : “book_name1”, “price” : null, “category” : [ { “key” : “Test1”, “value” : null } ] }, { “book_name” : “book_name2”, “price” : “50”, “category” : [ { “key” : “test3”, “value” : null }, { “key” : “test4”, “value” : null } ] } ], “value” : null }
{ “_id” : ObjectId(“6382cfbec592b1532c8d5bcc”), “UserId” : 6777, “DateAdded” : ISODate(“2021-01-01T05:00:00Z”), “Books” : [ { “book_name” : “book_name1”, “price” : null, “category” : [ { “key” : “Test1”, “value” : null } ] }, { “book_name” : “book_name2”, “price” : “50”, “category” : [ { “key” : “test3”, “value” : null }, { “key” : “test4”, “value” : null } ] } ], “value” : null }
{ “_id” : ObjectId(“6382cfa8c592b1532c8d5bcb”), “UserId” : 934, “DateAdded” : ISODate(“2022-01-01T05:00:00Z”), “Books” : [ { “book_name” : “book_name1”, “price” : null, “category” : [ { “key” : “Test1”, “value” : null } ] }, { “book_name” : “book_name2”, “price” : “50”, “category” : [ { “key” : “test3”, “value” : null }, { “key” : “test4”, “value” : null } ] } ], “value” : null }

If you don’t have a Date field, you can still use the inbuilt default date object for getting recent documents.

Please refer to this article for more details,

• Query MongoDB using ObjectId by Date -MongoShell

Do you have any comments or ideas or any better suggestions to share?

Please sound off your comments below.

Happy Coding !!

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